Interview With Scout Taylor-Compton, Nolan Gerard Funk, and Rich Ragsdale For ‘The Long Night’

Home invasion movies are so fucking scary. The idea of someone terrorizing me in my own home, trying to enter without my permission, or even worse yet, actually coming inside my house, just scares the total shit out of me. While The Long Night isn’t exactly a home invasion story, it comes pretty damn close. It is home invasion adjacent and is pretty freaking scary. To celebrate the release of the film to select theaters and digitally, I spoke with stars Scout Taylor-Compton, Nolan Gerard Funk, and director Rich Ragsdale about why they wanted to be a part of this film, what draws them to horror, and their favorite scary movie.

 

PopHorror: Hi everyone! I loved The Long Night, so I’m really excited to speak with you all today. 

Rich Ragsdale: Oh wow, thank you!

Scout Taylor-Compton: Thank you!

PopHorror: Of course. So what intrigued you about the film and made you want to be a part of it?

Scout Taylor-Compton: When I got the call about doing The Long Night, it was actually from Rich himself, and I had worked with him before on Ghost House [PopHorror review], so I was very excited to be reunited with Rich. I know his style of directing, and I know who he works with, and I just had such a fun time on Ghost House. And then I found out that Nolan was a part of the project, whom I had worked with him in the past. We weren’t very close on Triple Dog, so it was really exciting for me to be reunited with him.

And the script. The character of Grace definitely interested me because she wasn’t this very victim-y woman. There was this underlying strength with her, which I am attracted to with these female characters, especially in this genre. So there’s a lot of reasons that got me excited for the project.

Rich Ragsdale: I get this call from a producer that I know, and he was like, “Hey, you want to come to South Carolina to make a movie?” And I was just like, “Okay.” They had actually gone through a couple of directors, and when I got there, there were multiple versions of the script that were varying levels of good and bad. The thing that attracted me to it was they actually gave me free range to redesign everything. There wasn’t a lot of money at that point because the production had been sort of troubled up to this point, and so the trade off was I was afforded a certain level of creative freedom. I hired my DP and my costume designer that I normally work with, and I got them to hire a friend of mine, Rob Sheppe, to rewrite the script, which he was rewriting as we were shooting. I think just the creative freedom to take this material and turn it into something else was pretty cool. 

Nolan Gerard Funk: I’d been dying to do a film in Charleston. I really fell in love with the Charleston of today, and I’d been wanting to do a movie there. It was sort of similar with a last minute phone call. It had initially been pitched to me opposite a different actress and then it came back around. As soon as I heard it was Scout, I was immediately intrigued. Rich called me up, and we had a really nice call. I think they sort of forced me upon him, and he was like, “Who is this guy?” And we then got on the phone, I think.

I was drawn to it being this two-hander. I liked it being just really about this couple and their relationship. And then what do you do in this really surreal but also very believable and possible circumstance? I think we’re all familiar with being alone in a house and wondering what could happen when you’re in the middle of nowhere. What are you going to do? So I think this movie felt like it had potential to be something bigger than what was on the page. Everyone involved felt creative. We were kind of given free range with the dialogue, with everything. To just kind of jump in and make a movie, you know? Which I think, whenever that happens in our business, we’re really lucky to do.

PopHorror: I love the “alone in the house in the middle of nowhere” subgenre because to me, that’s terrifying. Then you add the animal masks, which I find equally as terrifying. I found this to be one of the creepiest movies that I’ve watched in a long time, and I really appreciate that, because it takes a lot to creep me out. 

Scout Taylor-Compton: Thank you, Tiffany!

Nolan Gerard Funk: Thank you.

PopHorror: None of you are strangers to the horror genre. I mean, Scout… you’re a favorite contemporary scream queen. And Nolan, Deadgirl is one of the most fucked up movies ever. What is it that draws you to horror?

 

Scout Taylor-Compton: I’m going to go back to my childhood. I grew up in a mortuary. My dad’s a coroner and a mortician, and I grew up going to horror cons. My mom showed me my first horror movie, The Exorcist, when I was seven years old, so horror has been around me my entire life. But I think the escape that this genre gives is what I’m attracted to. I think that we’ve just elevated it as the years have gone by, with this genre. I think that the genre has just gotten to become this beauty that has been missing. But I’ve just been attracted to this genre for a long time.

Rich Ragsdale: For me, I’ve always loved scary stuff, ever since I was a little kid. I grew up watching horror movies on television. I always liked scary books and scary comics and all that stuff. But the thing that appeals to me as a filmmaker in the genre is that once we enter this kind of heightened reality as a horror film, you’re actually given free range to do a lot of really strange and surreal things, and nobody bats an eye. If you were watching Motherless Brooklyn and all the sudden, everybody started levitating and there’s snakes crawling out of nowhere and strange things, you would be like, “What’s wrong with this movie?” But in a movie like this, you’re just like, “Oh, yeah. Of course that’s what happens.” So you can bring this psychedelic, surrealist quality to a film without being pretentious or forcing it on the audience. That for me is the most fun part as a director, just getting to play around and be creative.

 

Nolan Gerard Funk: For me, I’m never really going after a genre. I’m going after a role and story. For me, this just felt like an artsy blockbuster. You have these elements of Halloween, and then you also have these elements of Star Wars with these creature-like members. And then you throw in that little bit of magic. I think that something like this, there’s all these different elements. It’s just about making good movies at the end of the day for me, so this just felt like it had potential to be one.

PopHorror: What is up next for you guys? 

Nolan Gerard Funk: I’m in New York City right now. I’m filming the first season of a television show called Partner Track. We’ve got Julie Anne Robinson, who directed Bridgerton and did our first couple of episodes. It’s been really fun. I reunited with my cinematographer from Counterpart, and it’s been fun coming off something like The Flight Attendant where I wasn’t the one being scared, but I was in another thriller. This is much more of like a legal dramedy so really switching genres now. And it’s nice to be in New York.

Scout Taylor-Compton: I’ve a few movies coming out this year. I have a movie called Triple Threat, which is where I play three sisters. I have a movie with John Malkovich called The Chariot. I have another movie called Model House, which is coming out to Netflix, and Captive, which I just did ADR for. And I’m directing this year, so a lot of fun stuff.

PopHorror: That’s super exciting!

Rich Ragsdale: We’re wrapping up a pretty epic music video that we just made. I’m waiting to see how this one does. We have a number of scripts and projects that we’ve got in the hopper, so we’re ready to get going.

PopHorror: I’m really excited to see what you guys have coming up. Just one last question for you all today. What’s your favorite scary movie?

Scout Taylor-Compton: Ooh. Mine would have to be the very first one I ever saw, which was The Exorcist. But I also like this indie film called May. that probably would be my favorite as well.

Nolan Gerard Funk: I saw A Quiet Place in the theaters, and I have rarely been that scared watching a film. So I would say in scare factor and originality in the genre, I’m a huge A Quiet Place fan.

Rich Ragsdale: For me, picking a favorite horror movie is like picking a favorite child or something. I always say—it’s more of a disturbing movie than a straight up horror movie—but the movie that probably affected me the most and maybe made me want to make films more than any other film is Eraserhead. The first day of production on anything I shoot, I wear my tattered Eraserhead t-shirt for good luck. And then if we’re talking straight genre stuff, I really love John Carpenter’s The Thing, or maybe Texas Chain Saw Massacre. All of the classics.

Thank you so much, Scout, Nolan, and Rich , for taking the time to speak with me. You can catch The Long Night on digital now!